The re-emergence of formerly taboo words has prompted some historians to draw parallels with the rhetoric used in the final, turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, the fledgling democracy that gave way to Adolf Hitler's dictatorship.

For more than a year, the Islamophobic Pegida street movement has routinely insulted the media as "Lügenpresse" (lying press), a word used by Hitler in the 1920s to discredit the mainstream press.

Far-right demonstrators heckling Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers also labelled them "Volksverräter" (traitors) for allowing 890,000 asylum-seekers to come to the country last year.